Lincoln IT aces win Jade Prize

Lincoln IT aces win Jade Prize

A Lincoln University graduate who has jointly won a Jade software prize with a fellow student says Christchurch is “a hotspot for IT”.

Kazunori Hashikuchi, originally from Nagoya in Japan, was working for a Japanese IT company until last year, but decided to come to New Zealand to further his education in the subject.

“The industry is great here and Christchurch in particular is considered an excellent place to find IT jobs,” he says.

Kazunori and Ewan Dickie jointly received the 2015 Jade Prize on 21 October after gaining top marks in their Lincoln University Software Engineering class this year.

They were both thrilled to share the $2000 prize, which the Jade Software Corporation has awarded annually since 1999.

“It’s a really big honour to win this,” says Kazunori, who began his studies at Lincoln in May last year.

He enjoyed completing his Graduate Diploma in Software and IT, as it gave him the opportunity to learn a number of new skills in computer simulation and networking development.

“It has also been great to make a lot of new Kiwi friends.

“I really like it in Christchurch and will definitely be staying here to look for a job.”

Ewan says it is “really awesome” to have won the Jade Prize along with Kazunori, and hopes to move into the GIS field after finishing his Bachelor of Software and Information Technology.

“I really like the way you can portray and create something physical out of a whole lot of data,” he says.

“I would like to eventually move into a council role, perhaps something involving waterway management.”

Jade Software Corporation Chief Innovation Officer John Ascroft, who came to Lincoln University to present the winners with their prizes, says the education sector is important to the company.

“We hire a lot of graduates. Jade and Lincoln have always worked well together and it’s nice to have an industry relationship.”

ENDS

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